"India's laboring people are still struggling on the edge of poverty where survival, rather than quality of life, is the main concern," write Dai Yonghong and Wang Jianping, scholars at Sichuan University in southwestern China. "Modi is too persistent in pushing the image of a bustling and prosperous economy while [he] remains blinded to the root of India's ills.”

Last year, Messrs. Dai and Wang write, India changed its methods for estimating growth "to moisten the data to make the government seem more credible."

Economists who study India regard the country's Central Statistics Office as an institution insulated from political meddling. And, while debate continues to boil over how to interpret the new output numbers, there isn't evidence that last year's revision was deliberately calibrated to inflate growth rates.

Messrs. Dai and Wang aren't blind China boosters. They counsel Mr. Modi to learn from China's own experience raising its people from poverty by attracting investment, which, they argue, created an illusion of prosperity but also financial bubbles.

"The ultimate reason why China is attempting to make a bold economic transition under the leadership of President Xi Jinping is because of the recognition that capital can be a misfortune rather than a blessing," they write.

Their article ends on a familiar note for followers of the China-India matchup discourse: Democracy gets raked over the coals. "A highly efficient Chinese government finds it difficult to deal with the troublesome middle income trap, so how can one expect Modi's successors to drag the 'burdensome democracy' of India to create miracles?"